[Sports Talk 790] Daryl Morey Interviews

""Our half court offense is very good, also top ten in the league and one of the reasons our offense is I think 3rd in the league right now. We do have plays in the half court. We also play in the half court while in crunch time. The problem isn't the offense. The problem is still the defense and why you'll see Coach McHale make substitutions that he thinks helps us on defensive end. Both Beverley and Robinson were defensive substitutions yesterday for him. Beverley, he liked what he was giving us defensively. Thomas, he liked the ability to switch screens and he thought the energy he was giving us on defense was very good yesterday. That's why you'll see McHale make some of those changes.""

this is so BS and doesn't make any sense at all - i'd be surprised of morey is not simply showing public support for his coach. the reasoning is so flawed i'd be surprised if he actually believes this.

if your offense is good, but you take away your starting pg and center, then your offense is no longer good. so as of 4th quarter yesterday the offense wasn't the same top 10 offense that he was referring to. so yes, the offense WAS a problem at point in time.

and if you're putting in bev for defensive purposes, then have him play D on the actual offensive threat, such as Mayo. you don't stick your D guy on mike james. that's just stupid.

so, they took away their top 10 offense, and took away the effectiveness of their best defender by sticking him on someone who's not an offensive threat.

that is simply amazing coaching right there.

 

Are we burning up your international minutes here Daryl?

I hope you can here me. Happy to be tuning in from Europe.

So you're in Moscow this morning?

I am. Yes. Probably the best team in Europe here. Lots of great players.

You really must like watching basketball as a casual fan with no interest in the talent level of the players out there on a scouting trip. That's pretty awesome.

Well Patrick Beverley played in this league last year in Saint Petersburg. He has given us good minutes. There are good players in Russia right now.

Maybe the time frame is different but your annual European trek? Going to multiple places?

Yeah, lot's of different places. I like going at the end of the year because it's pretty well known at that point which players will be in the draft, which players who might be free agents who might come over next year, things are a little clearer in March and lots of good games so it's a good time to come over.

I saw a story about how the economy in Europe might affect international basketball - the teams might not have quite the farm system they used to. What is the relative level of international basketball right now in terms of the talent they might be sending over to the NBA the next 2-3 years?

Yeah, so traditional power houses Spain & Greece, Spain is still very good although their economy is struggling. It hasn't affected Real Madrid or Barcelona but the next tier of teams. Greece is very much struggling although their top teams are still pretty good. Russia and Turkey have stepped in and they have money that has kept the level of basketball at a pretty equal level, maybe a little bit down.

Your team last night went on a 50-15 run and took care of the Suns. I thought Donatas Motiejunas showed the total package last night. Assess what you've seen from him. Is he about what you expected?

He's probably better than I had hoped. I was very excited when the coaches felt he was ready to start. He's been someone who has worked hard and someone we've worked with on his development for several years, even when he was in Europe. I'm really happy for him. I'd say about halfway through the year I met with him. He was so disappointed and again, it just shows his character. Disappointed in himself that he hadn't convinced the coaches he was someone they could put on the floor yet. He was asking me what he could do. I was encouraging him that his time will come. When you're a young player in the middle of it and not playing, it's very difficult for a guy who, his whole career up to this point, played 30-40 minutes every game his whole life. He stuck with it and I'm happy with what he's doing.

Happy with the rotation and now that it's solidified?

Yeah, I don't know if it's stable. The coaches are still figuring out the big spot, especially who will give us consistency? We've been up and down. I think if Greg can solidify some minutes at the backup five, Thomas some energy off the bench and Donatas giving us solid minutes at the 4 starting, that should hold and we have the option to go small against certain lineups that has done well for us.

Specifically on Greg Smith, because he wasn't drafted, not a lottery pick, and wasn't acquired in a massive deal, we don't talk about him. He's just another guy. What's keeping him from being a solid 5 at the backup spot?

It depends on the matchup. Step one to being good in this league is giving good strong minutes and help them win. Greg has done that. Step two, where Greg has not gotten to, is do it 3 out of 4 nights instead 1 out of every 2 or 3. Greg has yet to make that transition but we're hopeful he can. He's been giving us good minutes in practice.

Think you'll have enough of a sample size out of this group of players to know whether or not you roll with them next season? You have so many young guys and obviously you're looking for superstar talent but any part of you that would want to see what these guys can do with another training camp under all their belts and maybe individual player development but you have all that cap room as well. Do you think it will be a tough call for you at all?

Yeah, I do. We're gonna have to choose between some of the young players that will probably be giving us good minutes like we're getting now and maybe making acquisitions at their positions that would limit their minutes. We're gonna have to guess if the players we acquire are better in the long run than the young players. We may choose to watch this young team develop, we may choose to make a big acquisition. There are a lot of decisions to make and they have not been made. We'll get a lot of info as we go down the stretch and hopefully into the playoffs. We'll learn a lot between now and the end of the year.

Has anything changed in the WC playoff picture, mainly the top 5?

I think realistically we're the 6th, 7th, or 8th seed. 5 is possible but very remote. Still, unfortunately, a chance we miss the playoffs if we don't take care of business. If we win the games we'll be favored in, we'll make the playoffs without much trouble. If we don't do that, then it'll be tough. We have a lot of games(Golden State, Utah) coming up at home that will be difficult, ummm one second...sorry guys.

Why has Memphis been a better team without Rudy Gay?

Rudy is one of those players, I don't want to comment too much because he's not on our team but he has ability and he hasn't necessarily....they have other ways to score in Memphis. That's Rudy's strength, is being able to create a shot for himself. On offense, they didn't necessarily need his skills as much and Tayshaun came in with a lot of experience. They'll be a very tough out for whoever faces them, probably won't be us unless we can win a round, maybe face them in the 2nd round.

If you get the 6th, they're at 3 right now.

Are they at 3? Okay. We still have the Clippers sliding into 3, I think maybe because schedule strength down the stretch. If they're the 3, I guess you're right, for sure there is a chance. That would be an interesting contrast in styles. They're one of the best paint scorers and paint protector teams in the leagues. We're one of the better perimeter teams in the league. An interesting clash of styles. ...... You're right. I haven't noticed but Memphis' strong play, we still have LAC favored for 3 but Memphis is right there, so yeah, we have a good shot of playing Memphis I hope.

Are you familiar with these two 20 year old college kids who prank called the Bills GM?

I did see that. I was hopeful that I don't fall for that or any Nigerian gold schemes that might be available to me at some point. ..... It wouldn't happen because GMs in the league, pretty much all of them, we have each other's cell phone and if it's a number we don't recognize, we don't answer. Otherwise it will be someone that is unlikely that we want to talk to. It will be an agent who has a player that isn't on the radar or someone just calling to harass you.

Is it possible you or anyone in the office on a daily basis on your to do list, it says don't end up on Deadspin today?

I've ended up on there a couple of times. It usually isn't good. Once for having a terrible fantasy football team. I've been on there for a few embarrassing things so I can't be the one who cast stones here.

Is Michael Jordan in your cell phone?

Michael Jordan, yeah. Pretty much every major...if someone got my cellphone, it would be bad.

Have you showed your kids or said to anyone "Look at this, I got this guy's number" ...

They're smartly uninterested in that. Unless it's Chandler Parsons and my daughter and my son doesn't even have a cell phone, so he doesn't know to be impressed yet, if at all.

Lakers lost. Kobe twisted his ankle. Kobe was clear after the game that he thought it was dirty. He wants the league to do something about it. Do you believe jumping under shooters is an issue again? It was once, with Bruce Bowen, among others.

I didn't see that play. I've not seen it personally but I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I personally haven't really seen anyone do it for at least a long time. I do remember the league office being focused on a few players in the past. I haven't heard about it in quite awhile. We would love for the Lakers to miss the playoffs but for it to happen fair and square.

Have you noticed a difference in flopping?

I think it's working. I was in support of it before the year. I thought it was a good move.

(Twitter question): Can you win a championship without a superstar(specifically Denver)?

I'm rooting for Denver as long as we don't play them. It would be good for the league to have a team constructed like Denver to win the title. It has never happened. If they did win the title, it would be historic. They don't have anyone playing in the top 20 of the league. I think it would be very good for the league, as long as we aren't the victims. It would be historic. No one has done it. People reference Detroit but Detroit had at least 3 guys in the top 20 at that point.

I think you can make a case for the '94 Rockets, who didn't even have two. Most teams have two. You had Dream and a bunch of role players around him.

It's been done with one but the one has to be usually ridiculously good, like Dream was arguably the best player in the league those 2 years. Jordan and him but Jordan was out of the league. One has to be extremely good. It's been done with one, never with zero.

How long are you over there?

I'm over for a little while longer. Not sure of my exact return date. I'm at a couple of sites.

Will you follow the NCAA tournament, going to games there or follow on TV?

I usually follow on video after the fact. In terms of the value for scouting, they're worth more than any other game but not much. You learn about players by watching a volume of games, not one or two games.

For a small school player, if a small school player goes against one of the major conferences, is there more value in the level of competition, or the stage?

You make a great point. Those players are still extremely difficult to forecast when they play 80-90% of the schedule against competition that is sub-par. It's also very easy to get misled if they play well in 2-3 games against top competition. If the draft was easy, you wouldn't see teams making tons of mistakes, including ourselves in the past. I like to stack our record against any team in the league but it doesn't mean we didn't make quite a few mistakes. I can name 4-5 over the time I've been here.

 

^thanks!

 

Great summary, thanks!

 

Really only 4 or 5? Come on Morey I've done better than you in just the lottery picks you have had. I picked Batum over Greene, Sanders over Patterson, Kawhi Leonard over Marcus Morris, and anybody over Royce White. And all of those are picks I made before the draft that are on record here.

Also in this past Draft I wanted Meyers Leonard or John Henson. With a slight edge to Leonard because of his size and his passion in difficult situations. When we got the 12th pick I was excited at the possibility of getting Leonard. And when he was gone I thought Henson was the smart and obvious choice. I know people on here love Lamb and I will admit the verdict is still out but I didn't want him because him as a passionless one dimensional player. Anyway it's hard to complain about that one because he turned into harden but certainly I wouldn't proclaim Morey a winner on that as well.

I think Morey's problem is so clear. Stats don't transfer from college to the pros. You have to deal with so many variables, small college vs major, age vs veteran, etc. The other thing is he seems to believe that talent can win out over attitude. TWill was a bit of a headcase, Royce White is mentally ill and a thief and doesn't seem to show remorse for his mistakes.

Where he does seem to do well is with the art of the deal. he seems to know how to rape people desperate for money or cap space. That is his specialty. And he does like to sign lots of players in hopes that a Beverly or Greg smith pan out. But that is more of a shotgun approach. One thing for sure is he is definitely working but he does seem to have a better opinion of himself than what I think he deserves. My sense is that he is not the brightest MTI guy that has graduated of recent but that still makes him smarter than me yet not necessarily a better evaluator of talent.

 

@J.R.

Great summary. Thanks!

 

You just named 4.............

 

Most interesting part of the interview, IMO. Apparently the front office feels good enough about the potential of guys like DMo and TRob that trading for someone like Josh Smith is not a clear cut move.

 

"I was very excited when the coaches felt he was ready to start"

well, morey, to be fair, you didn't really give them a choice.

 

I think you have a better opinion of yourself than what anyone thinks you deserve. Armchair GM at its best.

 

Most interesting part of the interview, Morey thinks Memphis is our best matchup.

 

Morey trying hard to be polite about Rudy Gay.

 

First it's not about me. I am a nobody who doesn't any say so in the Rockets decisions. I am just stating facts which can be verified on this board. You can disagree whether my choices are better or worse but they are my choices. The only one that I didn't make as obvious was wanting Henson instead of Lamb but that one can be argued I missed the boat on and Lamb may very well be the better player.

The point is Morey has missed the boat on every lottery pick he has had IMO and he is tooting his horn a bit too much. Especially considering he doesn't have a lottery pick track record to back it up. Why brag about mediocrity. And why keep telling us how we have done all of this while remaining competitive. We have been in the lottery 4 out of 5 years. What kind of crap competitiveness is that. I think Morey is doing a good job but unlike some on here I refuse to ignore his shortcomings.

 

Him not being perfect is a shorcoming? I thought that just made him human. Oh well i guess we cant all be the genious you are. :/

 

Again it is not about me. And he is far from perfect but that is not my point.

His shortcoming is not being able to evaluate college talent very well. And again I think he fails because it is not a science as much as he wishes it was. And that is a fault of every GM although clearly some are better than Morey. My only problem was he would be willing to put his draft record up against anyone and I think he falls short. You can disagree but IMO he definitely does and really why does he even have to say it.

 

So Morey missed 5 out 50, and you hit 5 out of 50?

That might be an exaggeration, but remember Morey mentioned in previous interviews what he thought is the best way to use draft. It's not to draft better role players, but to take risks and try hitting potential stars especially when we don't have Harden to build around.

 

can someone link the podcast?

 

Come on you really don't want me to do this? I am not trying to have a bashing fest on Morey. I actually think he is one of the best GM'sin the league. But his specialty is the deal and evaluating draft prospects is not his best attribute. So I just wish he would shut up about putting his record against anyone else's because he falls short.

He picked Joey Dorsey the prototypical center of the future. Over Deandre Jordan and Omer Asik. He picked Taylor and Llull over Dejuan Blair or even Budinger who was only selected when Adelman went over Morey's head to Les and said can we get this guy.

Yes Donatus and parsons are gems and I will admit at being mesmerized by Royce White's skillset but the kid had redflags everywhere and the worst wasn't about his fear of flying.

So I am not going to argue this point anymore just I do not think he's Morey ball analytics work very well on evaluating talent. Yeah I do not know exactly how he incorporates them but certainly his stats show players Like Dorsey Royce TWill or off the charts and Larry Sanders and Kawhi Leonard played for Small colleges and so there stats may not be as relevant but there is more to it than that. Yeah Morey probably knows that and that is the problem if he knows that and still misses out on Kawhi leonard over Marcus Morris so bad how do you fix that.

 

exactly.

1) If the lottery picks are ignored, Morey drafted well.

2) And we must forget who he actually drafted because Morey's draft board could be very beautiful from #1 to #60.